John W Henry admits he and FSG have made Liverpool mistakes too

In his open letter Liverpool's principal owner talks of 'reversing the errors of previous regimes' but significantly says these were 'compounded by our own mistakes in a difficult first two years'

John W Henry, right, with Kenny Dalglish after Liverpool's Carling Cup final win against Cardiff City at Wembley on 26 February 2012. The Scot was sacked as manager three months later. Photograph: Tom Jenkins for the Guardian

Before examining the ins, outs and intrigue of the Liverpool manager's frustrations with the club's owners, and what the principal owner, John W Henry, then broadcast implicitly about the manager, it is handy to remember that culture they used to call the Liverpool Way. Henry referenced it himself, in his "open letter to fans", which essentially justified not signing Clint Dempsey on transfer deadline day by explaining that Henry's consortium, Fenway Sports Group, is building for the future with young players. "Most of all we want to win," Henry's letter stated. "That ambition drives every decision. It is the Liverpool Way."

But winning and ambition does not quite encapsulate the Liverpool Way. It was coined by the club themselves, as they generated their winning ways under Bill Shankly in the 1960s, then his boot room successors in the 70s and 80s, to embody a certain dignified approach. Part of it was for the spats and clashes that all football clubs – all organisations – inevitably have to remain within Anfield's corridors, and for a united front to be presented to the world. It was perhaps a misguidedly extreme form of that philosophy that led Kenny Dalglish to back Luis Suárez so completely even after the Uruguayan had been found guilty by a Football Association panel of racially abusing Manchester United's Patrice Evra, complete with those supportive T-shirts for all the players to wear.

That element of the Liverpool Way has been holed just three difficult games into Rodgers's tenure as manager. The owners, based in Boston, grappling with their baseball team, the Red Sox, having their worst season for 20 years, would no doubt feel justified in pointing out that Rodgers started it. Henry's letter was already being drafted before Liverpool lost 2-0 at home to Arsenal, in response to supporters' websites and press criticism at the club missing out on signing a striker when the transfer window closed on Friday. But it had not yet been delivered until after Rodgers complained, following the Arsenal defeat, that the owners had not backed him in signing a replacement for the loaned-out Andy Carroll. Rodgers told the press he never would have let Carroll go if he had not been certain that Dempsey was coming in to partner Suárez in attack.

Managers do occasionally grumble that their bosses are not spending enough money for them, but it is difficult to think of any precedent for the owner to then issue an "open letter" effectively in response. Just by releasing what could otherwise seem a measured explanation of FSG's approach – give or take a couple of notable asides – Henry ensured that the aftermath of the Arsenal defeat was all about the world asking what the hell is going on inside Anfield.

Had Rodgers not let his frustrations out, Henry's letter might not have been seen as a riposte, but there was that one barb that seemed to refer directly to the manager and his complaint about missing out on the 29-year-old Dempsey. "Our ambitions do not lie in cementing a mid-table place with expensive, short-term quick fixes that will only contribute for a couple of years," Henry's letter said.

There are several ways to take that, besides what appears to be a dismissal of the contribution Dempsey might have made and, by implication, Rodgers's judgment for wanting him. One is that in Henry and FSG's long-term vision – "We are not just looking at the next 16 weeks until we can buy again: we are looking at the next 16 years and beyond" – they are not even concerned about finishing as high as mid-table this season, as long as the right youngsters have been signed for the future.

It is, though, important to understand this is not really about Dempsey; the compass needed to orienteer through this points to the younger man he was to replace: Andy Carroll. The letter contains an explicit admission that the American owners, hailed as smart cookies when they took over Liverpool from Tom Hicks and George Gillett in October 2010, went on to make their own mess.

"We are still in the process of reversing the errors of previous regimes," Henry said in a reference to Hicks and Gillett, who loaded Liverpool with their £200m short term borrowings to take the club over from David Moores and Liverpool's other British shareholders in 2007. Then Henry went on: "It has been compounded by our own mistakes in a difficult first two years of ownership."

There is little doubt that Henry was referring to paying an outlandish £35m for Carroll in Henry's first flush of arrival into soccer in January 2011. Then the red carpet into one of Europe's greatest football clubs was rolled with awed reverence for FSG as Moneyball adherents, stats based, scientific, value-for-money player acquirers. Henry justified the £35m paid for Carroll by saying their price rose with the money Liverpool were to receive from Chelsea for Fernando Torres. The difference was always going to be £15m, Chelsea bid £50m, so Liverpool happily paid £35m.

Now, Henry apparently acknowledges that the Moneyball men paid way too much, that they should have held on to their precious multi-millions until the summer to sign a truly top-class forward. It is now accepted in Boston that they also overpaid for Stewart Downing (£20m), Jordan Henderson (£16m) and Charlie Adam (£8.5m) just a year ago. That was under Kenny Dalglish, the returning Liverpool icon they appointed as manager, and the then director of football, Damien Comolli, whom Henry recruited on the recommendation of Billy Beane, a baseball general manager.

Henry and the Liverpool chairman, the Los Angeles TV producer Tom Werner, sacked Dalglish at the end of last season, Comolli had gone in April, and several senior members of the Anfield staff followed. Much of this transfer window was spent undoing the deals FSG did during its honeymoon period: Carroll, loaned out to West Ham, an astonishing comedown; Adam, sold to Stoke for £4m; and Henderson offered in a swap for Dempsey, a deal Henderson rejected.

Henry said in his letter "our ownership is not about profit … owners rarely get involved in sports in order to generate cash", but the Americans' ownership is not of wholly sporting purity. FSG may not want profit in terms of taking cash out, but without question it is motivated by wanting the value of the club, its property, to increase. Henry and Werner resolved they were not going to get burned again in football which, lifelong baseball fans, they knew nothing about when they took over. Henry's letter makes sense; putting the emphasis on youth – all the top clubs try to do that. But leaving a new young manager short of a striker, for the difference of £3m FSG was not prepared to pay Fulham, means that, scarred by their own mistakes a year ago, it could be twisting too far the other way. These clever men from Boston, who were attracted by the Premier League's cash and global popularity back in 2010, are still on a learning curve, along the Liverpool Way.